A wond’rous feast his love prepares, Bought with his blood, his groans, and tears! Hence, the _promises_ are a feast, because they are all sealed with his blood; and the _gospel_ is a feast, because it publishes a free and complete salvation through his name;—that dear name, which, “like ointment poured forth,” diffuses an exquisite fragrance throughout all the promises, and communicates a preciousness to the gospel, which makes it a rich savor of life unto life. And, when in that sacrament, which, by sacred and significant symbols, exhibits his dying love, the soul is enabled to eat the bread of life, and drink that stream that gushes from the smitten ROCK, 1 Cor. x. 4; it then joins issue with the experience of the church in the Song of Solomon, “He brought me into the banqueting-house, and his banner over me was love.” Solomon’s Song, ii. 4. As the provision, which God hath been pleased to lay up in the covenant of grace, and the redemption of his Son, is calculated to communicate entertainment infinitely more exalted and refined, than what can be derived from the highest gratification of the senses; it follows, that the feast we are considering, is of a _spiritual_ nature: it is a feast for the _soul_, that nobler part of us, which constitutes our real selves, and in which are lodged the quickest perceptions and most permanent susceptibility of pleasure. For, as the soul, in the extent of its desires, the capacious powers of its exertion, and the resources of its enjoyments, surpasses, in so great a degree, that earthly vehicle in which it dwells, and by an union with which its immortal vigor is so much repressed and circumscribed; so are the _pleasures_ of the mind capable of being proportionably more pure, more lasting, more refined, and more sublime. But, as the senses are so intimately connected with the rational faculties, and form those inlets by which various pleasing sensations are conveyed to the soul; hence the enjoyments of the latter are called, in scripture, by those very terms which describe the exertions and distinguish the nature of the former. Thus believers are said, “to _taste_ and _see_ that the Lord is good,” Psal. xxxiv. 8; to “_handle_ the word of life,” 1 John, i. 1; to “_drink_ the river of pleasures,” Psal. xxvi. 8; and to “_eat_ the bread of life.” And those objects in creation which strike the senses with the most exquisite delight, or are best calculated to convey strength and nutriment to animal nature, are selected, by the inspired writers, as symbols of those resources, from whence the rich variety of a Christian’s pleasures are derived. The blessings of redemption are compared by the prophet to _wine_ and _milk_. Isa. lv. 1. This, the most nutritive—that, the most exhilarating—liquid in nature. The delicious droppings of the honey-comb were inferior in sweetness, in the opinion of David, to the word of God; and even “the most fine gold” had, in his estimation, no value, when